Proposal: Advanced Martial Arts

[GM Craig]

Ken brings up the very valid "Sauce for the goose" point. Thanks, Ken.

If it's allowed for players, it's allowed for NPC's, so consider being on the receiving end of these abilities.

[Niil Spaar]

Uhhhh . . . no thanks.  Niil has enough problems with the bounty hunters.  He doesn't need Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan coming after him.   

*SHHH-DOOOF *

"HEY!  YOU BOOTED ME IN THE HEAD!"

[GM Craig]

I'm not trying to disparage the martial arts training you guys may have had with all this. If that is how my comments were taken, I apologize for any perceived insult or lack of respect. It was not intentional.

I am hoping for consensus. I don't want this to be a divisive issue. I don't want an acrimonious discussion, and I certainly don't want this to devolve into ad hominem attacks. If it starts to turn that way, I'll simply scrap the specials entirely. That's not a threat, and it isn't my preferred choice, but it is an option.

I like the flavour and concept. I want to find some way to incorporate it into the game. I think advanced skills is a way to do that without breaking game balance. Is it the best way? Maybe, maybe not.

I still haven't heard my concern addressed about brawling:martial arts -vs- Blaster: Blaster Pistol specializations, and how one gets special moves and the other does not.

The existing rules already cover things like multiple attacks and the like. That's part of the basic rules. I'm trying to find a way to make kung-fu movie type abilities available. Instant simultaneous strikes faster than the eye can follow. Leaping huge distances. Running up walls. In the abstraction rules of WEG's D6 Star Wars, those kinds of moves are not going to be something that a recreational student of martial arts can do. I'm firm on that - I want specials to be the result of dedicated study. I want specials to be set apart from what the garden variety brawler can do. I want them to be relatively rare. I want them to be meaningful. I want them to be powerful, but not overwhelmingly so. And I do not want everyone who knows a little martial arts to have access to them.

I'm trying to find a way to bring special moves into the game without breaking game balance. Treating a brawling specialization as different than a heavy blaster pistol specialization, to my mind, breaks game balance. Why wouldn't everyone have a martial arts specialization? Allowing specials off the specialization is, I think, game-breaking. I want this stuff in game, but not enough to break the game to make it happen. I want a Star Wars game, not a Kung Fu in Space game. Know what I mean?

So lets work together and see if we can find something that works to make this possible.

[Trax]

I still haven't heard my concern addressed about brawling:martial arts -vs- Blaster: Blaster Pistol specializations, and how one gets special moves and the other does not.

I would say if someone wants to do a trick shot, throw out a DC.  There are already DCs for hitting small targets etc. I don't see this as being much of a stretch.  I get that a sharp shooter is very different from a trick shooter, but without going overboard and adding extraneous rules that will rarely come up I think it's the best solution.

I would apply the same mechanics for special attacks, you want to do a spinning kick to someone's head for a stun or extra damage, you have to beat the persons parry roll by 'x'.  If you beat their roll by less than 'x' it's a normal hit, if you beat it by 'x' or more, then you've successfully landed the intended/special strike.  That's enough I think to cover most of the moves listed in the Special forces book.

But for the advanced/more way out of reality type moves, then I think the advanced skill needs to be in play.

I understand Nightshade's (Ben?) concern about it taking a year plus of real life time before your character can effectively use certain skills, but really, that can be said for any skill you suddenly decide to take.  It's just the nature of play by post games.

[Collan]

I would say treat Martial Arts as a separate skill, and require 5D to learn advanced arts like Echani. Like real life you can cross specialize but the tricks require a roll in the advanced discipline while straight up attack rolls sum the dice if the base and advanced skills. Another option would be to allow players to shift some martial arts dice to brawling parry as part of the skill.

[GM Craig]

The original concept required 5D in Brawling:Martial Arts to learn the advanced skills.

I initially went with two advanced skills because there are two martial arts specializations. I had envisioned a more defensive style using the dex-based Martial Arts (A), and a more power-based style using the strength-based Martial Arts (A), but that leaves balanced styles out in the cold.

I'm not sure how to reconcile that, except to perhaps scrap the brawling parry: martial arts-based advanced skill.

Or, perhaps make Martial Arts (A) not tied to an attribute, and require either 5D in Brawling Parry: Martial Arts -or- 5D in Brawling: Martial Arts to begin learning the advanced skill. Moves would then be universal (not tied to a defensive/offensive skill), and a style's move selection becomes more one of flavour and based on a specific skill.

[GM Craig]

To break out of the "Styles" pigeon hole, maybe do it similar to force skills? When you first pick up Martial Arts (A) you learn all the moves in the given style. 5 moves come free. If you want to branch out, you can learn moves from other styles and techniques for a 5CP cost, if you can find a teacher. That gives players some customization.

[GM Craig]

Nightshade took a move from the Spec Force Handbook called Silent Strike. It's a one-shot-kill type move. I'm not a big fan of those kinds of things, for obvious reasons. I'd much prefer a damage bonus rather than a one-shot-kill, and I'm strongly leaning that way. It wasn't a done deal in our preliminary discussions.

I put up some sample moves in the original topic, but we don't have to be limited to those. I just put these there as examples of the kind of things I was thinking about.

[Niil Spaar]

To break out of the "Styles" pigeon hole, maybe do it similar to force skills? When you first pick up Martial Arts (A) you learn all the moves in the given style. 5 moves come free. If you want to branch out, you can learn moves from other styles and techniques for a 5CP cost, if you can find a teacher. That gives players some customization.

AHA!  That's what I was starting on before the courier exodus started here!  Except I'd also add that a PC could create his/her own martial art style (ie. without a teacher), but at 2x the CP and at least 2X the time.

[GM Craig]

Yeah, that could work, Darren.

[Nightshade]

No, I didn't take any offense about actual training, nor did I mean any, I was just trying to explain that I couldn't think of a way to really convey what I was trying to say with words, but that it needed a visual aid to really grasp my concept.

That aside...to answer your concern about special moves vs blaster specializations, I see it as being a way to counter the disparity between damages between the two weapons...blasters do a ton more damage than martial arts or brawling and the special moves help make this less of a gap and keep it as a valid story hook.  Otherwise why use a skill that does no more than 4d damage if I can get my hands on something that can do up to 6d (maybe more?).

I will say that I like the concept of treating them like the Force skills and I think that this is a good compromise between both points of view. What about tying in defense and offense like control, sense and alter if you still wanted to incorporate that? Maybe that would give some balance between purely offensive styles, defensve styles, and a more rounded balanced style which would give more bonuses but require more CPs in return?

[GM Craig]

So abandon the advanced skill paradigm, and treat them like force skills? Standard costs for increasing them, moves are powers? That could work. I'll need to give it some thought.

If we went that route, I think I'd want to make new moves a flat 5cp (to raise the bar a little an make up for loosing the advanced skill cost). You get one defensive move and one offensive move with your first D (presumably from the trainer that got you to your first D in MA:O and MA:D).

It makes styles or schools a little less important, which isn't really much of an issue, and if someone is wiling to invest the time and CP, they could learn a butt-load of specials. But doing so would hold them back in other areas.

This could work.

Thoughts? Feedback? Comments?

[GM Craig]

Note: I do not want this to be a replacement for Jedi skills and powers, so specials would have to scale accordingly.

[Niil Spaar]

So abandon the advanced skill paradigm, and treat them like force skills? Standard costs for increasing them, moves are powers? That could work. I'll need to give it some thought.

If we went that route, I think I'd want to make new moves a flat 5cp (to raise the bar a little an make up for loosing the advanced skill cost). You get one defensive move and one offensive move with your first D (presumably from the trainer that got you to your first D in MA:O and MA:D).

It makes styles or schools a little less important, which isn't really much of an issue, and if someone is wiling to invest the time and CP, they could learn a butt-load of specials. But doing so would hold them back in other areas.

This could work.

Thoughts? Feedback? Comments?

Sounds good to me.  It's like any other "career path" in this game.  If you want to invest heavily in a certain set of skills, you're going to be deficient in other areas. 

[Trax]

Does this mean these dice would no longer be combined with the base/specialized martial arts skill(s)?  And would the net cp cost and training time be any different than your proposed rules?  What would the training costs be in time and cp in each scenario if the skill was brought to 5D?